<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Respondent-driven sampling (RDS) is a network sampling technique typically employed for hard-to-reach populations when traditional sampling approaches are not feasible (e.g., homeless) or do not work well (e.g., people with HIV). In RDS, seed respondents recruit additional respondents from their network of friends. The recruiting process repeats iteratively, thereby forming long referral chains. RDS is typically implemented face to face in individual cities. In contrast, we conducted Internet-based RDS in the American Life Panel (ALP), a web survey panel, targeting the general US population. We found that when friends are selected at random, as RDS methodology requires, recruiting chains die out. When self-selecting friends, self-selected friends tend to be older than randomly selected friends but share the same demographic characteristics otherwise. Using randomized experiments, we also found that respondents list more friends when the respondent’s number of friends is preloaded from an earlier question. The results suggest that with careful selection of parameters, RDS can be used to select population-wide Internet panels and we discuss a number of elements that are critical for success.</abstract>

Respondent-driven sampling (RDS) is a network sampling technique typically employed for hard-to-reach populations when traditional sampling approaches are not feasible (e.g., homeless) or do not work well (e.g., people with HIV). In RDS, seed respondents recruit additional respondents from their network of friends. The recruiting process repeats iteratively, thereby forming long referral chains. RDS is typically implemented face to face in individual cities. In contrast, we conducted Internet-based RDS in the American Life Panel (ALP), a web survey panel, targeting the general US population. We found that when friends are selected at random, as RDS methodology requires, recruiting chains die out. When self-selecting friends, self-selected friends tend to be older than randomly selected friends but share the same demographic characteristics otherwise. Using randomized experiments, we also found that respondents list more friends when the respondent’s number of friends is preloaded from an earlier question. The results suggest that with careful selection of parameters, RDS can be used to select population-wide Internet panels and we discuss a number of elements that are critical for success.

Recruiting an Internet Panel Using Respondent-Driven Sampling

University of Waterloo, Statistics and Act.Sci.200 University Ave, Waterloo, Ontario N2L3G1, Canada.

RAND Corporation, Survey Research Group, Los Angeles, California, USA.

University of Southern California and RAND Corporation

Journal of Official Statistics

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

{"article-title":"Recruiting an Internet Panel Using Respondent-Driven Sampling"}

Respondent-driven sampling (RDS) is a network sampling technique typically employed for hard-to-reach populations when traditional sampling approaches are not...

Recruiting an Internet Panel Using Respondent-Driven Sampling

Published Online: May 08, 2014

Page range: 291 - 310

Received: Feb 01, 2013

Accepted: Nov 01, 2013

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jos-2014-0018

Keywords
Web survey, RDS

© by Matthias Schonlau

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Recruiting an Internet Panel Using Respondent-Driven Sampling

Published Online: May 08, 2014

Page range: 291 - 310

Received: Feb 01, 2013

Accepted: Nov 01, 2013

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jos-2014-0018

KeywordsWeb survey, RDS

© by Matthias Schonlau

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Keywords
Web survey, RDS